Best Classic Film Noir Pics

These are just my current personal top ten of all possible best classic film noir choices to help you decide what to watch out for on Turner Classic Movies or rent online or at the videostore, or even buy for your collection. Maybe you've seen them all, maybe you haven't seen any, but these little video clips can give you a little taste of each.

Directed by Fritz Lang. Stars Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame and Broderick Crawford.

Sexual desire runs amok when a train engineer (Ford) gets involved with the ultimate femme fatale (Grahame), who attempts to lure him into killing her alcoholic murderous husband.

Directed by Billy Wilder, starring Kirk Douglas and Jan Sterling.

A reporter in New Mexico (Douglas) exploits a disaster story in what is probably his best performance. Human suffering is prolonged for the sake of the bad-news hungry rabble. Still highly relevant today.

Directed by Henry Hathaway, starring Richard Widmark, Victor Mature, Colleen Gray and Brian Donlevy.

This film is populated with a variety of bad guys, from the loving father who steals for his kids, to the crooked lawyer, to the sadistic killer, to the bad cop, to the gangster. Nick (Mature) tries desperately to protect his family, but he can't seem to escape the criminal world he came from.

Directed by Michael Curtiz, starring Joan Crawford, Jack Carson, Zachary Scott and Eve Arden.

Housewife and mother Mildred Pierce is played by Joan Crawford. Mildred is heroic in her independent rise from waitress to successful business woman, but she sacrifices herself to please her spoiled, femme fatale of a daughter and gets involved with the wrong man at the same time.

Directed by Edmund Goulding, starring Tyrone Power, Joan Blondell and Colleen Gray.

Tyrone Power plays a con artist spiritualist who preys on rich folks with his two partners, a fortune teller and a psychologist. He rises from small time carnival shows to big time nightclub acts and then falls to the depths of the carnival world he came from.

Directed by David Miller, starring Joan Crawford, Jack Palance and Gloria Grahame.

Crawford plays Myra Hudson, a rich and successful playwright who falls in love with and marries the wrong guy (Jack Palance). Gloria Grahame palys the hussey who urges him to off her for her money. Myra finds out and keeps her hurt and betrayal hidden as she tries to figure out what to do.

Directed by Sam Fuller, starring Richard Widmark, Thelma Ritter and Jean Peters.

Two-bit crook Skip McCoy (Widmark) accidentally steals some spy microfilm. The feds are after it, but he holds out, hoping to sell it for top dollar. The film portrays a world of squalor and violence in the big city, where the characters struggle to get by, whatever their ideals.

Directed by Jean Negulesco, starring Ida Lupino, Cornel Wilde, Celeste Holm and Richard Widmark.

A nightclub singer (Lupino) comes between two good friends, the nightclub owner (Widmark) and the nightclub's manager (Wilde). Psychological tensions mount until all are derailed.

Directed by Jacques Tourneur, starring Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, Kirk Douglas and Rhonda Fleming.

Mitchum plays Jeff Bailey, a nice guy trying to forget his past by starting over with a gas station in a small town. But the past always catches up, and this time it's in the form of the ultimate femme fatale Kathy (Jane Greer) and slick racketeer whit (Kirk Douglas). Jeff seems drawn to his own self destruction with a romantic cynicism.

Directed by Phil Karlson, starring John Payne, Evelyn Keyes, Brad Dexter and Peggie Castle.

Taxi driver and a pro fighter has-been, Ernie Driscoll (John Payne) catches his spoiled wife (Castle) cheating on him with a jewel thief. Meanwhile, his gal pal (Evelyn Keyes) tells him she just murdered a man and needs help. Next, he is wanted for the murder of his won wife. He's basically a nice guy just trying to get along but he's sucked into the mayhem, haunted by his last fight where he was pulverised.